


butterfly transmission

by editingatwork



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Butterflies, Coming Out, Gen, slight angst, strong emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 02:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20846216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editingatwork/pseuds/editingatwork
Summary: Moments when those tummy butterflies beat their wings.





	butterfly transmission

Jack is a heavyset teen with acne forming craters on his face, and his stomach twists with euphoric nausea when his new liney, Kent Parson, hurtles into him like a human bullet after every successful goal. “Attaboy, Zimms!” Kent yells. His gloves pummel Jack’s shoulders and his breath fogs Jack’s helmet. In the middle of a game, everything is cold air and sticky sweat and rough impact, but whenever Kent smiles, in Jack’s belly, a summer meadow blooms with butterflies.

***

Eric is the cutting precision of a figure skate on virgin ice—even here, at Samwell, where he knows he’s not the only one in four. Image is something he cultivates carefully; skimming the edge of Clearly Queer with a toe pick at the ready, always, to slam down on anything that can’t be taken back.

Eric fumbles words and cue cards and treads a path through sidewalk slush as he paces. Finally he manages, “I’m gay,” the words as hot and cloying as his breath in the winter air.

“Oh, cool, bro!”

Eric feels like his lunch has just turned over in his gut. “Wow. That was the first time I ever said that out loud to anyone. To _myself_. Those exact words.” Not even a mirror has ever bared witness.

“Well, thanks for trusting me with the moment, man!” Shitty’s grin is giddy, his joy for Eric overflowing. Infectious.

Eric’s ribs curl around his heart like a hug, too tight for him to breath, and yet his stomach feels weightless with relief. His fear peels back and lets through a smile, like sunshine breaking through clouds.

***

Co-captains.

“Holtz, come on!” Adam is drawn from his seat by a hand on his elbow. His feet tingle with static, his mouth full of cotton, his heart close to sizzling.

He didn’t think— He hoped, sometimes, at night, when it felt like the universe might truly be listening.

_Don’t make me choose between him and me._

It’s not fair to make him want something as badly as he wanted the captaincy and pit that against how much he loves his best friend.

The hand at his elbow migrates over his shoulders when they reach the table’s head. Adam grins, puffs up with pride, gratefully but calmly accepts the co-win. He keeps his cool.

Inside, he’s the goddamn Fourth of July.

***

Too much silence starts to feel like a scream.

_Tell me I’ll bounce back from this_, he thinks at his coach when his numbers start to slip, and the numbers in his back account start to feel like charity.

_Tell me you have fun with me_, he thinks at his teammates when they go out after a game, the only people any of them readily know in a given city.

_Tell me you wouldn’t hate me,_ he thinks at his mother, when she calls him after The Kiss that broke MSNBC Sports and asks him if he knew.

He goes home and sits on his couch and stares out the window at a dark sky blurred with neon lights. Slowly, he collapses sideways, and curls up in the hopes that the cushions will swallow him until he disappears.

Kit, finished with dinner, wanders in and yowls for him.

“Here, babe,” Kent mumbles. “What’s up?”

Kit yowls again.

“Yeah?” Kent sighs and wiggles tighter. He’s too corporeal to disappear utterly, but he tries.

Fur and paws and whiskers arrive suddenly, with a cold nose shoving itself unceremoniously under Kent’s arm. He relents. Kit inserts herself bodily into his space, flopping heavily against his ribs and stretching her legs until her paws and the tips of her claws are halfway up his nose.

Kent pets her absently.

Kit starts to purr, a loving, rumbling earthquake that shudders through Kent’s chest and down his belly. 

It shakes something loose in him. He rubs his nose into her ears and the back of her fluffy neck and silently cries.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for everyone's patience with me being totally MIA. I'm hoping to quit my job soon and find something that'll give me more time to daydream and write about what I dream up.  
I love you guys.  
Hope you enjoyed.


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